Our Speakers

About the Speakers Bureau

The Speakers Bureau are dynamic young leaders who represent the youth voice and the vision of Earth Guardians. Our Speakers Bureau has spoken at workshops and trainings, given keynotes at conferences, participated in panels, addressed school assemblies, and given media interviews. Members of Earth Guardians Speakers Bureau have been hired to speak at United Nations events, international rallies and many other high-profile events.

Through Earth Guardians Youth Councils we have partnered with incredible youth speakers with both the expertise and talent to present on a variety of topics. From climate change to human rights and social justice to green entrepreneurship and innovation, members of the EG Speakers Bureau from all over the world have amplified youth perspectives on important and complex issues. Look for exciting updates to this program soon as we transition to Voice Runners.

ALEX Trevino, National council member & Crew Leader

Alex is 17 years old and lives in Beaumont, Texas and is both an EG national council member and crew leader. She took her first steps into activism in 2014 on the first day of summer when she heard the news of the fine arts programs being cut from her school; she along with her fellow theatre students got to work. Within two days they had gathered 20 fine arts students, got the attention of the local media, and organized their first rally at the local ISD administration building. This action lasted the whole 2 months of summer where they called the entire community to action, traveled to the state courthouse, saved over four hundred teachers’ jobs, and helped bring the corruption within the local school board to light. In 2015, Alex again faced the school board, where she spoke out against standardized testing. After successfully opting out of standardized testing she made her transition into homeschooling, where it became possible for her two passions to meet: art and activism.

In 2016, on Halloween day, her family made their way to Standing Rock. Through this experience, she was called to action and found her passion for climate activism. After many years of fighting for what she believed in, she found the community she was searching for, Earth Guardians. Recently, she started Earth Guardians Beaumont Crew despite the challenge of living in an area that is known for their oil refineries. Alongside the launch of her crew, she is CO-founder of Operation EG with Marlow Baines and Mia Eastman. Not only is she an amazing youth leader but also a tattoo artist and incredible chef. With her dedication and fiery passion, she is making waves of change at a local and national level.

marlow baines, Earth Guardians global crew director, 17

Marlow Baines is a 17 year old from Boulder, Colorado. She began her journey finding her voice as an Earth Guardians National Council member. The National Council training in 2017 inspired her to do two major things. First, she launched a campaign called “Project Confidence”, which was geared towards shifting culture around school dress code from something negative to something positive and empowering for young girls. Second, she realized that education could be as inspiring as her Earth Guardians work which propelled her to leave public High School and begin a new self-learning journey.

“Despite your age, background or passion, you have a voice worth sharing.”

Shortly thereafter, she began working with Earth Guardians as a Regional Crew Director for the Central U.S. Between planning multi-district dances for high schoolers, home schooling, and working with Earth Guardians, she has found a passion for bringing people together and talking about self care, because healing yourself, mentally and physically, is the first step in mending our relationship with the planet. Marlow, at 6’2, loves the (ecofashion) runway, as well as the basketball court. She writes, she travels, and is honored to represent the beautiful organization of Earth Guardians.

Mia Eastman

Mia Eastman, age 17, has organized events within her community and showed dedicated involvement alongside leaders at the forefront of social justice issues, spanning March for our Lives, Black Lives Matter, the Women’s March, The Youth Climate March Zero Hour and more. Her presence in these, seemingly separate, movements has built her personal understanding of the interconnectedness of all of the differing obstacles that people face around the globe. Through this awareness, her focus shifted to the critical state of the planet and, more specifically, how we are directly contributing to it with our current lifestyles and dependency on fossil fuels. By providing opportunities to turn her aspirations into action, Earth Guardians has assisted Mia in facilitating the organic growth and amplification of her passion to create a more regenerative future for all people.

Mia is a Co-Founder and the Creative Unification Director of Operation Earth Guardians, which is the organization’s youth-led direct action and documentation team.As part of the team, she works to further educate and inspire youth, and adults, to generate safe spaces for sharing the stories of people affected by climate change with the intention of finding solutions to the most pressing issues of today.

“There is no leadership like youth leadership. Today, we all bear witness to the mass mobilization of young people spanning the entire planet for a common cause: justice. We simply demand the future that we deserve, no political figure or corporate interest will take that away from me.”

Xiuhtezcatl | Earth Guardians Youth Director

Earth Guardians Youth Director Xiuhtezcatl Martinez, (his first name pronounced ‘Shoe-Tez-Caht’) is a 19-year-old indigenous climate activist, hip-hop artist, and powerful voice on the front lines of a global youth-led environmental movement. At the early age of six Xiuhtezcatl began speaking around the world, from the United Nations Summit in Rio de Janeiro, to addressing the General Assembly at the United Nations in New York. He has worked locally to get pesticides out of parks, coal ash contained, moratoriums on fracking in his state and is currently a plaintiff in a youth-led lawsuit against the federal government for the government's affirmative actions that cause climate change and fail to protect their essential public trust resources.

Xiuhtezcatl has traveled around the world educating his generation about the state of the planet they are inheriting and inspiring them into action to protect the planet. Earth Guardians youth crews are now in 54 countries and growing. His work has been featured on PBS, Showtime, National Geographic, Rolling Stones, Upworthy, The Guardian, Vogue, Bill Maher, The Daily Show, Nickelodeon, Comedy Central, CNN, MSNBC, HBO, VICE, and more.

In 2013, Xiuhtezcatl received the 2013 United States Community Service Award from President Obama, and was the youngest of 24 national change-makers chosen to serve on the President's youth council.

Aji

Age: 18, Hometown: Seattle, WA

"Our federal government has not been held accountable for their gross failure to protect the life and the future life on this earth, forcing us children to take drastic actions to procure the needed motivation in order to save life on this planet."

As The Planet Magazine wrote about him, Aji "seems like a typical teenager, until he starts to speak on issues ranging from climate systems to social justice and education policy." Aji's love for the earth began growing up in Port Orchard, WA, at the end of a half mile dirt road. His mother raised him in connection with Buddhism and herbalism, and when Aji was 12 he joinedPlant for the Planet, a youth-run organization that has planted 14 billion trees worldwide. Now a member of theEarth Guardians RYSE Council, Aji has spoken at numerous rallies, events and universities, and even began a lawsuit against the Department of Ecology in Washington before joining the #youthvgov federal case.

Sierra Robinson

Sierra Robinson, is a 17 y/o permaculture teacher, farmer, film-maker, environmental activist, homeschooler and director of the Cowichan Valley Earth Guardian Crew - where she works with her friends and family to combat local and global issues from plastic pollution to the destruction of our old growth forests.

Sierra has traveled and taught groups of children, youth, families, elders, and universities about permaculture (a regenerative design system modeled on nature), environmentalism, and how to use and design with regenerative solutions. Currently she has been working on campaigns and projects to better the environment and ensure a safer future for all. She has been working together with Abundant Earth Foundation and Operation Earth Guardians to launch her newest project Chasing Change, a youth led media project with the goal of inspiring, uplifting and empowering people of all ages to take action by sharing sustainable and regenerative ideas and solutions. It is a website and platform to document and showcase stories from people around the world to educate, support, inspire, normalize and create a safe space for conversation.

Vic Barrett

19-year-old activist Vic Barrett is fighting hard for a future for all of us. Barrett witnessed the reality of climate change firsthand, as he was among the many impacted by the climate change fueled superstorm, Hurricane Sandy in 2012, which left his family and school without power. Barrett became involved in activism in high school by becoming a member of Global Kids, an organization that focuses on developing leadership skills for youth. Barrett then became a Fellow with the Alliance for Climate Education and spoke at the COP21 UN Conference on Climate Change in Paris in 2015, at the age of 15. Barrett was among 400,000 participants in the People’s Climate March in NYC and delivered a speech at the United Nations General Assembly in support of sustainable development goals.

With all of these achievements under his belt before age 18, Barrett set his eyes on his biggest target to date: The federal government. Barrett is among 21 youth activists between the ages of 10 and 21 who are actively suing the government to take action on climate change in Juliana Vs. United States. The suit states that the government violated youth rights by allowing activities that harmed the climate, and are asking for progressive changes to current carbon dioxide emissions. Barrett understands that it is his generation that will be impacted by the policies and decisions of older generations refusing to combat climate change, and make meaningful changes towards a sustainable environment. Most recently Vic attended COP24 in Katowice, Poland in order to bring in the voices of frontlines communities and took part in acts of protest to highlight the voices of those most vulnerable. Vic is currently studying Political Science and Environmental Studies with a full-ride to the University of Wisconsin-Madison.